This application claims the benefit of Danish Application No. BA 1999 00407 filed Nov. 17, 1999 and PCT/DK00/00640 filed Nov. 16, 2000.
The present invention concerns a valve device for self-watering of livestock and of the kind indicated in the preamble of claim 1.
In the winter half, where freezing temperatures may occur, it is a recognised problem that usually there is a relatively great manual and time-consumning work connected with ensuing fresh drinking water for livestock in outdoor stable facilities or on fields.
It is the purpose of the invention to provide a new and improved valve device of the kind mentioned in the introduction and which by means of simple measures enables arrangement of outdoor frost-proof self-watering of farm animals.
The valve device according to the invention is characterised in that said valve body is arranged to close for discharge of water through the said outlet opening under subjection of the water pressure in an inlet opening, that the said valve body is arranged to be remote controlled from the said drinking bowl or nozzle, and that said valve is so arranged that the delivery tube and the valve housing are automatically emptied of water when the valve is closed, i.e. when only the valve body is subjected to the water pressure. By means of simple measures it hereby becomes possible to arrange outdoor frost-proof self-watering of farm animals.
Suitably, the valve device according to the invention may be thus designed that the drinking bowl is mounted at an upper end of a mainly vertical steel pipe fastened on the inner wall of a well pipe, e.g. a corrugated well pipe of plastic anchored in the ground, that the valve is fitted at the lower end of the steel pipe, preferably on a lateral flange thereof, that said delivery tube and said remote control are passed through the steel pipe.
In a particularly simple way it may be advantageous that a valve device according to the invention is thus designed that opposite to the inlet opening, the valve housing is designed with a transversely disposed slit for an actuation arm extending transversely to the valve body and being connected at a free end section with a tension wire which is connected with an actuation bracket with a tongue member disposed in the drinking bowl or at the drinking nozzle.
The valve device according to the invention is preferably so designed that the valve housing and the valve body, respectively, are so designed that the inlet opening, the outlet opening and the drain opening may all be shut off simultaneously.